The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-12-29
cones and microscopes, ana an the Lev

scopes and microscopes, ana al the Ley
den jars, and all the electric batteries,
and all the obscrvatories, and al the
shall bow to Jesus. 1t IS
much that way already. Where is the
college that does not have morning
prayers, thus bowling at the nanger3
Who have been the greatest physicians?
Onitting the names of the living, lest we
should be invidious, have we not had
them Christian men like our own
Joseph G. Hutchinson, and Rush, and
Valentine Mott, and Abercrombie, and
Who have been our greatest
scientists? Joseph Henry, who lived and
died in the faith of the Gospel, and
Agassiz who, standing with his students
among the hills, took off his hat and said:
'sYotmg gentlemen, before we study
these rocks let us pray for wisdom to
the God who made the rocks. 7" Today
the greatest doctors and lawyers of
Brooklyn and New York, and of all
this land, and of all lands, revere the
Christian religion, and are not ashamed
to say SO before juries and legislatures
and senates. All geology will yet bow
before the Rock of Ages. All botany
will yet worship the Rose of Sharon. All
astronomy viii yet recognize the Star Of
Bethlehem. And physiology and
anatomy will join hands and say: '.We
must by the help Of God get the human
race up to the perfect nerve, and perfect
muscle, and perfect brain, and perfect
form of that perfect child before whom
nigh twenty hundred years ago Caspar,
II
knees in worship.
Behold also in that first Christmas
night that God honored the fields. Come
in, shepherd boys, to Bethlehem and see
the child. ''No," they say; 1--WE are not
dressed good enough to come in" eyes,
you are come in" Sure enough, the
storms, and the night dew, and the
brambles have made rough work with
their apparel, but none have a better
right to come in. They were the first to
hear the music of that Christmas night.
The first announcement of Saviour's
birth was made to those men in the
fields. There were wiseacres that night
in Bethlehem and Jerusalem snoring in
deep sleep, and there were salaried Off
GERS of government who, hearing of
it afterward, may have thought
that they ought to have had the first
news of such great event, some one
dismounting from swift camel at their
door and knocking till at some sentinelis
question, s'Who comes there?n the great
ones of the palace might have been told
of the celestial arrival. No; the shep-
herds heard the first two bars of the
music, the first in the major key and the
last in the subdrled minor: "Glory TO God
in the highest, and on earth peace, good
will to men, All, yes; the fields were
honored The old shepherds with plaid
and crook have for the most part van
ished, but we have grazing-on our
United States pasture fields and
prairie-about 45,000,000 sheep, and all
their keepers ought to follow the shep-
herds of my text, and all those who toll
in fields, all wine dressers, all orchard
Christmas night but all up and down the
worlds history God has been honoring
the fields Nearly all the messiahs of
reform, and literature, and eloquence,
and law, and benevolence, have come
from the fields. Washington from the
fields; Jefferson from the fields; the
presidential martyrs, Garfield and Lin
coin, from the fields; Henry Clay
from the fields; Daniel Webster
from the fields; Martin Luther from the
fields; and before this world is right
the overfowing populations of our
crowded cities will have to take to
the fields. Instead of ten mer-
chants in rivalry as to who shall sell
that one apple, we want at least
eight of them to go out and raise apples.
Instead of ten merchants desiring to sell
that one bllshel of wheat, we want at
least eight of them to go out and raise
wheat. The world wants now more hard
hands, more bronzed cheeks, more mus
cular arms. To the fields! God honored
them when he woke up the shepherds by
the midnight anthem, and he will, while
| the world lasts continue to honor the
fields. When the .'hepherd's crook was
that famous night stood against the wall
of the Bethlehem kahn, it was prophecy
of the time when thresher's fail and
farmers plow, and woodman's ak, and
ox's yoke, and sheaf binders rake shall
surrender to the God who made the
country as man made the town.
| tilSO tll5t Oh Jfldt
night God honored motherhood. Two
angels on their wings might have brought
an infant Saviour to Bethlehem without
Mary's being there at all. When the
villagers, on the morning Of Dec. &c,
awoke, by divine arrangement and in
some unexplained way, the child Jesus
might have been found in some COM
Portable cradle Of the village. But no,
no! Motherhood for all time was to be
consecrated, and one of the tenderest
relations was to be the maternal relation,
and one of the sweetest words mother -
In all ages God has honored good mother
hood. John Wesley had good mother,
st. Bernard had good mother, Samuel
Budget had good mother, Doddridge
a good mother, Walter Scott good
mother, Benjamin West a good
mother. In a great audience, most of
whom were Christians, I asked that all
those who had been blessed of Christian
mothers arise, and almost the entire as
sembly stood up. Don't you see how im-
portant it is that all motherhood be con-
secrated? Why did Titan, the italian
artist, when he sketched the Madonna,
make it an italian face? Why did Ru-
bens the German artist, in his Madonna,
make it a German face? Why did Joshua
Reynolds, the English artist, in his Ma
donna, make it an English face? Why
did Murillo, the Spanish artist, in his
Madonna, make it Spanish face? ]
never heard, butt think they took their
own mothers as the type of Mary, the
mother of Christ. When you hear
some one in sermon or Grafton speak
in the abstract of good, faithful.
honest mother your eyes fill up with
tears while you say to yourself, that was
my mother. The first word a child
utters is apt to be, .'mother," and the
old man in his dying dream calls,
"Mother! 'mother!'' 1t matters moi
whether she was brought up in the sur
roundings of city, and in affiuent home
and was dressed appropriately with ref
erence to the demands of modern life, Oh
whether she wore the old time cap, anc
great round spectacles, and apron of hel
own make, and knit yo,lr socks with heI
own needles seated by the broad fireplace